The Forgotten Planet

In this sci-fi bedtime story, you arrive on the surface of your ancestral planet, long thought to be blighted beyond recovery. As you travel the ruins of the ancient civilization, musing on the history and legends of your people, you discover evidence of plant life on the surface. Realizing the planet can once again sustain life, you resolve to lead your people home.

Added sleep visualization meditation.

Music/Sound: A Glimpse of Avalon by Flouw, Binaural Alpha by Syntropy, Epidemic Sound

Transcript

Discover new life on your ancestral planet in tonight's sci-fi sleep story.

Sleep and Sorcery is a folklore and fantasy inspired sleep series.

My name is Laurel and I'll be your guide on tonight's fantastical journey.

Sleep and Sorcery is one part bedtime story,

One part guided meditation,

And one part dreamy adventure.

If you're still awake as the story concludes,

I'll guide you through a relaxing visualization.

In this bedtime story,

You arrive on the surface of your ancestral home planet,

Long thought to be blighted beyond recovery.

As you travel the ruins of the ancient civilization,

Musing on the history and legends of your people,

You discover evidence of plant life on the surface.

Realizing the planet can once again sustain life,

You resolve to lead your people home.

Paradise is one's own place,

One's own people,

One's own world.

Knowing and known,

Perhaps even loving and loved.

Yet every child is cast from paradise into growth and new community,

Into vast,

Ongoing change.

Octavia Butler There is no map to your destination.

No conventional map,

That is.

Your people,

The Nosi,

Do not draw maps,

Nor do they write books.

The people are the maps.

They are the books.

Instead of on tablets,

Or pages,

Or screens,

Ancient wisdom and knowledge are scriven within the minds of young initiates.

In training,

Every one of you memorizes thousands of lines of poetry,

Myth,

Song,

Ways of knowing.

Why this practice,

Even now in a highly connected,

Interstellar society?

An oral history is harder to erase than a written one,

The elders say.

A map,

A book,

A record can be destroyed,

But a story that lives and breathes in many minds never can.

It's true,

Your people have scattered far across the known universe,

Making new homes on distant planets,

And your stories have traveled with you.

They seep into all corners of space,

Transforming,

Certainly,

But maintaining a universal core.

Still masked in layers of legend and metaphor,

The history handed down to your generation can be frustrating to parse.

Some spend their whole lives trying to decipher secrets and hidden meanings in the lore.

Others give up,

Enjoying the stories as mere entertainment.

You are one of the former,

You suppose,

Though there's only one subject you're interested in.

For years you've collected stories and superstitions in countless permutations from the older generation.

Traveling from star to star,

You've sought distant cousins and splinter groups.

You've sat at their fires and absorbed their traditions.

You've never written them down.

To do so would be an insult,

And your own training in the old ways allows you to store and sift through tremendous amounts of information.

Always at your side is SR-19,

Your loyal communications robot.

You've made certain modifications to him,

Rewriting his transcription protocol,

For instance.

But he's invaluable to you in many ways.

When conversing with Nosi on faraway planets,

Who've adopted the native language of their new homeworlds,

He translates for you in real time.

He's an excellent co-pilot for your beloved vessel,

The Timaeus.

But most of all,

Though you'd hardly admit this aloud,

You value his companionship.

These days the programming in SR units is so advanced,

And the artificial intelligence so sophisticated,

That it's easy to wonder whether they only act according to code,

Or whether there's genuine feeling there.

Whatever the case,

You've formed a tight bond with SR-19 that feels just as real and important as your relationships with others like you.

You might call him your best friend.

So you're grateful that he's here with you now,

As you hurtle through oceans of stars,

Beyond the borders of countless systems.

With the Timaeus's newly installed hyperdrive,

You move at the speed of light,

Through a tunnel of time and empty darkness.

Coordinates set,

The ship does the work,

And there's only a barely audible whirr to suggest that it moves at all.

In the quiet cabin,

You and SR-19 hunch over a table,

Playing at cards.

You lose,

Again,

And wonder again why you engage in strategy games with a super intelligent machine.

But once more you agree to a rematch,

If only to pass the time.

It's good to keep your mind busy too,

Distracted from the anticipation.

You'll arrive at the destination sooner or later,

So there's no sense dwelling on it too deeply.

Any time your mind turns toward it,

A hundred more questions swim to the forefront.

Questions you can't answer till you land,

If indeed there's anything there to land on.

It took years to find the coordinates.

It took dedication and endless inquiry,

Analyzing the songs,

Stories,

And myths of your people toward one end,

Discovering again the location of your ancestral home,

The planet Knossos.

Your people left the shores of Knossos over a thousand years ago,

Its memory preserved in legend and poetry shines brightly through the eyes of all who sing of it.

Our time on Knossos was a golden age,

The elders say.

The planet was home to sparkling waters,

Fertile land,

And rich metals for mining.

Great libraries,

Schools,

And temples were built.

And in the houses of knowledge,

Your people lay the foundations for great technological advancements.

There was little contact between star systems and galaxies then,

But your ancestors independently developed some of the first vessels and systems for interstellar travel.

It was,

It seems,

A paradise,

A home of your own.

But in paradise often comes pride.

The stories tell of swelling hubris and disregard for the planet's dwindling resources in the pursuit of greater advancement.

First came famine,

Then pestilence.

The people,

Once united by art,

Science,

Agriculture,

And faith,

Began to fight amongst themselves.

Civil war followed between disparate factions,

Each believing their ways,

Or their gods,

Would save the planet.

Many lives were lost in the conflict,

But by its end the planet's richness was so depleted that it could no longer sustain life.

The soil turned to ash,

The oceans dried up,

And the last of the ore was extracted from the mines.

No food would grow and there was no water to drink.

So at last the surviving No-Sea boarded their painted ships and departed to find new homes.

They fled by faction,

And for the thousand years since you suspect that the only contact between the disparate groups has been you conducting your research.

You've wound through and about them like thread,

Not quite strong enough to tie them together again.

But this effort you've made to piece together the history has brought you great insight.

From each camp you've mined a treasure,

A section of the map.

There are four tribes of No-Sea to your knowledge who persist across the stars.

The Order of the Red Hawk were the warriors.

Today they continue to train their young people in combat,

And many hire them as mercenaries throughout the galaxies.

The Dioscurians were formed by the priesthood.

In the time of civil war they became a fanatical religious order who believed the twin gods,

Raider and Destroyer,

Battled each other in the heavens to determine the fate of the planet.

A third tribe called the Academy were comprised of the scholars and scientists of Nosos.

In the time of war they looked to technology to save the planet and were disappointed.

You were born into a tribe who call themselves the Sowers.

Formed according to legend by the farmers of Nosos in the Golden Age,

You are masters of agriculture and plant medicine,

Uniquely attuned to the rhythmic cycles of the land.

Your tribe,

At least in the songs,

Were the ones who brought the planet's crisis into the light and beseeched the other groups to listen to the plants.

Today you inhabit the planet Cirrus,

Living peacefully among others from diverse species and backgrounds.

There is a thriving metropolis on the planet,

To which the Sowers provide abundant food each season.

In your travels,

You met with all the surviving tribes,

Gathering from each their versions of the myths and histories.

Each faction gave you a piece of the puzzle,

A piece of the map.

From the Order of the Red Hawk,

You learned the properties of the planet's special ore.

From the Dioscurians,

You learned the constellations of stars,

Which could be seen in the sky from the capital city.

From the Academy,

You learned of the planet's unique geological makeup and gravitational pull.

So wondrous how this information,

Which should be so complex and opaque,

Was woven into sublime poetry.

You enjoyed your time with the Academy richly,

Drinking full of their wisdom.

From your own tribe,

You already possessed a portion of the map.

The planet Knossos was home to a great many varieties of plant,

Flowers,

And trees,

And shrubs and mycelia that grow nowhere else in the known universe.

Every species entirely unique to your home world,

And every species unable to grow anywhere else,

Save one.

There is but one plant of the hundreds of cultivars brought on ships to the new home of the sowers,

Which survived and flowered on foreign soil.

This plant is called the Lightberry.

Ever since you were a child,

You've had a relationship with the plant.

It grew so easily and vigorously in the rich soil of Knossos,

You've heard,

That it lined gardens,

Covered the walls of buildings,

And even sprung up between sidewalks.

Easily recognizable for the bright green fruits that grow from its curly-queue trails in summer,

The Lightberry earned its name for a curious quality.

The berries,

As if with inner light,

Give off a tender glow upon the vine.

The berries ripen then to a bright pink and have a summery-sweet,

Lightly floral taste.

But year-round,

The Lightberry offers gifts.

The oil extracted from its leaves can cure headaches,

Clear the mind,

And even improve sleep.

On Sirrus,

Your tribe's home now for centuries,

The Lightberry has managed to adapt to its different climate and soil makeup.

While all the other cultivars struggled to put down roots,

It thrives here and has become a valued source of food and healing by the planetary population.

With the wisdom you've absorbed from a lifetime of working with plants,

It's as if you've always held the key to the mysteries of Knossos.

You studied soils and things that grow,

Till you became certain you could infer the type of soil that was present on the long-lost planet.

The ore,

The stars,

The gravity and the soil.

Each of these is another key.

They led you to the coordinates,

To the one star system in the wide vacuity of space where traces of these signatures coexist.

Now you're finally on your way.

You've spent so long wondering what you'll find when you reach what's left of Knossos.

Will the planet even still be there?

If it is,

Will it show any trace of your ancient civilization?

Will it be,

As the songs of all tribes testify,

Blighted beyond recovery?

Or will there be some possibility,

Some hint of the resurgence of life upon its surface?

You shake your head,

As if to clear it of the endless questions.

You focus once more upon the card game before you.

SR-19 has just laid down his hand,

Which contains the Queen of Stars and the World Turtle.

Alas,

He's won again.

But before he can gloat,

You feel a subtle shift in the vessel's movement pattern,

Signaling the gradual return to a moderate speed.

Outside the windows,

The streaming tunnel of stars spiral outward and backward,

Collapsing once again to finite,

Faraway points in the wide darkness.

You're leaving hyperspeed,

Which means you must be entering the system where Knossos lies,

A system with just the right conditions for your home planet's ore,

Constellations,

Gravitational pull,

And soil.

You stand and move to the wide view window,

Retaking control of the ship's navigation from the autopilot.

SR-19 joins you in the copilot's chair.

The sight before you simply takes your breath away,

With light from yonder star streaming over its horizon so it seems enveloped in precious shimmer.

There looms a massive sphere.

Its surface is obscured almost entirely by swirling masses of grayish clouds,

A good sign surely of the presence of water on the surface,

You think.

Is this it?

You ask the robot at your right hand.

Is this really it?

SR-19 responds,

By our calculations using the data retrieved from the tribes,

I conclude that we are looking at and preparing to land upon the lost planet of Knossos.

And so you are.

With the assistance of the autopilot's equations,

You set a course to land.

Breaking through the cloud layer,

Which does appear to be made up of water particles,

You further slow to a cruising speed before at last coming to a safe landing in a deep canyon of sand.

You don a protective suit and helmet equipped with breathing apparatus before disembarking the Timaeus.

After all,

You're unsure whether the air is suitable to breathe.

Your foot falls on soft sand.

It's so good to be on solid ground again,

Uncertainty and all.

It slips slightly beneath your feet.

SR-19,

Making all kinds of beeps and whirs and buzzes,

Runs a sample of the air through his systems before concluding that it is entirely safe to remove your helmet.

So you do.

And with the first gulp,

You find that the air is not only suitable,

But somehow richer,

More nourishing than that which you breathe on Sirrus.

The first breath seems to light you up,

From nose to lungs and all through your body.

You feel almost that if you took a hearty enough drink of the air,

You'd simply float upward into the clouds.

To get your bearings,

You'll need to climb one of the sides of the crater in which you've landed.

It seems you're surrounded by sand dunes and rocky escarpments.

You locate the most apparently navigable path and begin the steep track upward.

Behind you,

You can hear the mechanical whirs and gear clicks of the robot gathering and storing samples of the sand.

It's quite slippery underfoot,

Fine and powdery as fresh snow,

And purplish-silver specks within it sparkle beneath the diffuse light of the planet's cloud-covered sun.

When at last you crest the side of the basin,

Rising to your feet,

You gasp.

Soon SR-19 is at your side,

And even he makes a sound of utter astonishment.

You stand overlooking a wondrous sight indeed,

A spectacle quite beyond your wildest dreams.

There in the shallow valley below is the ruin of a great city.

A marvelous metropolis the likes of which you've never seen on Cirrus.

Vaster and grander,

You imagine,

Than the galactic capital you've heard so much about on Krantor.

From your vantage point you can see a colossal,

Many-spired structure which acts as an axis around which the rest of the city's buildings spin outward like orbiting moons.

All the buildings,

Homes,

And steeples of the quiet city appear to be made of the same material,

A reddish sort of stone.

And though its structures may be crumbling,

Still it shimmers with an impossibly picturesque silhouette,

Seeming to hum with the sung and spoken histories of a thousand generations.

For a single hesitant moment,

You wonder if you should turn and board once more the shining vessel,

If it's all simply too much to be the sole treader of the silent,

Sandy streets.

Maybe it is enough to behold it from here,

At only a slight distance,

To be satisfied with but a glimpse,

And to save yourself the possibility of disappointment.

But no,

You think,

You've come all this way,

All these years you've dreamt of this moment,

Now at last the endless questions in your head and heart may find answers among the ruins of your ancestral home.

So slowly and with deliberation,

You scale your way down the other side of the slope,

Much less steep than the way up.

Together with your faithful robot,

You go on toward the fallen city.

The streets,

Like the slopes,

Are coated unevenly with the powdery sand,

Which shifts and sparkles in a low breeze.

The gently whistling wind is the only sound in the city,

Save your footfalls and the steady clicking of SR-19's machinery.

You approach the first structures,

The decaying foundations of what might have been small but stately domiciles at the edge of town.

There is a quiet,

Forlorn beauty about the silent city under gray-clouded skies.

To think your ancestors once walked these paths,

When all was a light and a bustle.

If you half-close your eyes,

You can almost see them,

Moving still through the breezy streets.

As you move further into the city,

The buildings grow taller and wider.

Curiously,

They also seem better preserved the further you travel inward.

It's as if you walk through the landscape of a dream,

Which becomes more and more real as you dive deeper into its intricacy,

Leaving behind the world you know.

And yet,

Oh,

Such an aching familiarity manifests as a shiver up your spine.

Though you've never once set foot upon it,

This is your home.

That thought beats like a drum in the back of your mind,

Constant and low.

This is my home.

You pass an elaborate stone archway,

Still standing though it appears surrounding structures have since fallen.

It opens onto a large courtyard.

You and SR-19 stop to take in the details of the gate,

Which includes statuary and relief.

It's remarkable how much detail you can make out,

Despite the stone's weathered and worn appearance.

The arch itself is held up,

Balanced on both sides by the carved figures of a man and a woman.

These,

You realize,

Must be the twin gods of the ancient myths,

The creator and the destroyer.

In the woman's right hand are stone-graven shafts of grain.

In her left arm she holds a smooth sphere,

Probably Knossos itself.

The man holds a sword between both hands.

The stories of the twin gods reverberate through the traditions of all four tribes.

The twins have dominion over many aspects of life,

From creation,

Birth,

Art,

Light,

And scientific discovery,

To destruction,

War,

Winter,

And darkness.

Your people,

The sowers,

Still speak in metaphor about their role in agriculture.

The goddess nourishes the seeds in the ground and brings them to fruition.

The god,

Meanwhile,

Uses his sword for reaping.

This,

However,

Is the first time you've seen them depicted in art or sculpture.

Their images stir an ancient yearning within you.

It's strange,

You say,

Half to yourself and half to SR-19,

That in a time like this,

When we're capable of interstellar travel and technology changes at light speed,

Here the robot completes your sentence with an unexpected air of poetry.

That your heart should be so drawn inexorably toward the unimaginably old,

That you should feel so at home among the archaic.

Well said,

You chuckle.

Why do you think that is?

I think,

SR-19 replies,

That perhaps it's not so strange at all.

We are ever moving toward the future.

Time only travels in one direction,

And so it is reasonable to be wistful.

But no one ever believes they're living in the past.

You turn to SR-19,

Feeling a bemused expression cross your face.

For a brief,

Wind-tussled moment,

You imagine yourself rooted to the spot,

A statue holding up the gateway to a forgotten city.

You imagine a traveler from a distant future,

Puzzling over your image in stone and pondering the myths that surround you.

No one ever believes they're living in the past.

That's very wise,

You say to SR-19.

Shall we keep moving?

On you travel through the magnificent ruins,

Stopping here and there to admire what's left of the city.

You find what appear to be academic buildings,

Large halls decorated with elegant border relief,

Of compasses,

And scientific apparatus.

Here you think your ancestors might have built the first telescopes to gaze out among the stars.

Here they might have dreamt of one day traveling beyond Knossos to see what else was out there.

And in these spaces,

They might have imparted their learning to younger generations who would fulfill those dreams.

What must it have been like,

You wonder,

To live only on one world,

Even a miraculous one with fertile soil and abundant resources?

Today you have access to many diverse and brilliant systems.

All you need is a ship or a ticket for transport.

You can visit planets with vastly different gravitational fields and interact with different species daily.

Learners may study under experts from across the universe if they wish.

Your family grows food that's distributed across your planet and even to the farthest reaches of the system.

What must it have been like to live without such connectivity,

Beholden to the natural laws and limits of one home world?

At last,

As the sun of Knossos,

Still obscured by a thick layer of clouds,

Makes its departure,

You come to the many-spired structure at the heart of the city,

Which you beheld from your vantage point on the dunes.

Night settles on the city,

And SR-19 lights a flare to illuminate your way.

Here the air is still buoyant and nourishing,

But something in the atmosphere changes.

Where before a deep breath energized you,

Here it seems to lull you into a lucid tranquility.

You feel warm and secure.

The mammoth building,

Ringed with stone columns,

Four-spired in all and impeccably preserved despite evidence of weathering,

Sits atop a steep staircase.

A tickling wind winds its way between the columns and cavities on high,

Seeming to sing.

This place,

You think,

Has the hum of history and of the sacred.

For the first time,

A break comes in the clouds overhead,

And you catch a glimpse,

Just for a moment,

Of the purple-black sky and the stars before they're swallowed up once again.

The vivid,

Sparkling stars briefly align with the four spires of the structure.

Then they surrender to the clouds.

You think you know what the building is.

Before the planet's downfall,

Before the civil war between the tribes,

This was home to a unified people.

And these people met to study,

Dream,

Connect,

Serve and worship,

All in one place.

Part school,

Part library,

Part temple,

Part government hall,

Part community center.

This was the nucleus of a thriving world.

The light of the flare creates a fuzzy magenta spill and reflects off the bottom of the clouds,

Casting a veil on the structure.

Each of the spires you see is adorned with statuary,

One with a warrior,

Hawk,

Upon her shoulder,

One with the figures of the gods,

One with an astronomer,

Eyes and telescope to the skies,

And one with sickle in hand.

Each with equal place at the highest point on Knossos.

Any gifts.

One people.

With SR-19 at your side,

You begin to ascend the stair.

You wonder what you'll find,

If anything,

Inside the building.

Your heart beats steady as a drum and your mind fills with the poetry of your people,

Echoing down the millennia.

It's hard going as the stairs are steep,

But the light is good and you are ready.

Before you reach the top,

However,

You stop.

You almost step on a hairline crack in the stone.

Were you in any other place,

On any other world,

You would have gone on without noticing it.

But here,

In the sandy ruins of a blighted planet,

You halt in your tracks.

It can't be,

Can it?

The wind sings as you stoop down to inspect.

And there,

Coiling upward from the crack in the stair,

Eerily lit by the purple flare,

Is a tiny thread.

A tiny vine.

And from that vine sprout minuscule leaves,

Variegated and fine.

And on the stem there grows one small berry.

Possessed,

It seems,

Of an inner light,

The berry gives off a pulsing glow underfoot.

SR19,

You say breathlessly,

Is that what I think it is?

It would appear to be wild light berry,

The robot responds,

Engaging a telescopic device for inspection.

If you like,

I can take a sample for further testing.

No,

You say,

Leave it there,

It may be all there is.

But this means,

Once again SR19 completes your thought aloud,

The planet Knossos is,

Despite previous assumptions to the contrary,

Capable of sustaining plant life.

This,

Combined with a safe atmosphere,

Would suggest that the planet is in fact habitable,

Pending the discovery of a safe source of water.

There must be water,

You think,

If this plant can grow untended in the city,

If clouds can obscure the stars overhead.

There might be groundwater,

You're sure there are lakes and rivers,

Oceans even,

Beyond the metropolis.

This little vine is a miracle.

Proof that this planet could,

With care and effort,

Be a home again.

Let's go inside,

You say,

Pulling your gaze away from the curling plant and glowing berry.

You feel as if something inside the building is calling to you,

Singing to you.

Ascending the stair with a lightness that's like floating,

You approach the stone pillars and arches of the central structure.

On an instinct,

You instruct SR19 to extinguish the light,

Which he does promptly.

But darkness does not follow,

For there is light ahead,

Between the columns.

There is a soft,

Green luminescence within.

Passing under an archway,

You feel goosebumps spring across your arms.

You enter an expansive rotunda with domed ceiling and stone colonnade.

But every inch of the space,

From floor to ceiling,

All the walls,

The columns,

Everything,

Is overgrown with vines.

They seem to originate at one point in the center of the floor,

Then stretch and curl across and upward and down.

And from every corner,

Every few inches,

There grows a green berry,

Pulsing with an inner glow.

They're like thousands of stars that blink in a curtain of night.

You breathe in,

Deeply,

Inhaling the summery,

Sweet,

Floral fragrance of the light berry.

So familiar,

So evocative,

It transports you to summer days in childhood,

Waiting for the berries to ripen on the vine.

Now you understand why the air is calmer here at the city center.

These plants give off the most relaxing aroma.

Even in all the excitement and wonder of your discovery,

You feel serene enough to curl up among the vines and drift off to sleep.

It's more than you could ever have dreamt of.

You swell with pride and satisfaction,

Knowing that if the light berry can persist,

Thriving on the surface of the planet,

There is hope.

Hope for a homecoming,

And hope for the reuniting of a broken people.

Perhaps in time,

You will all share in the bounty of this planet,

Together,

Again.

You tiptoe through the vines,

Bathing in the unique perfume of the light berry.

Your head almost swims with the delight of it all.

SR 19 follows,

Taking samples now that there's an abundance of plant material.

You know that sooner or later,

You'll have to get back to the Dimaeus to analyze the samples and to get some sleep.

But you find you don't ever want to leave this cradle of community.

It's only when you hear a distant pitter-patter beyond the vines that you're moved to exit the rotunda.

You cross to the archway through which you entered,

Looking to the source of the gentle tapping sound outside.

Lit only by the hazy spill of the glowing berries,

A curtain of light rain falls on the steps and the stone.

So it does rain here,

You think.

There's breathable air.

There's light.

There's water.

The moisture in the air activates the oils and scent of the light berry even more,

And you breathe it in deeply.

As you exhale,

Your shoulders drop and your heart softens.

Is it safe,

You ask dreamily,

Indicating the rain outside?

SR19 joins you in the stone archway,

Extends a device into the shimmering rainfall,

And runs a swift calculation.

My sensors indicate that the rain is clean and free of any toxins.

It is safe for topical contact and for drinking water.

Good,

You say with a sigh.

Good.

And with this,

You step past the archway and into the open air.

You tilt your face upward to the clouds and the spires,

Shutting your eyes and letting the rain fall gently upon your face.

It cascades down your shoulders and arms,

Pure and cool and cleansing.

In the rain,

At the heart of the ancient city,

You feel renewed,

Reborn.

It is the same rain,

You think,

That once fell upon your ancestors.

Everything is a cycle.

Rain falls,

It floods the rivers,

Nourishes the plants,

Then evaporates into the clouds and begins again.

The plants grow in cycles too,

Flowering,

Fruiting,

Then falling away,

Before starting it all over again.

Each is created,

Preserved in song and story,

Relegated to myth,

Then unearthed and deciphered by a new generation.

No one ever believes they are living in the past,

But what is lost can be found again.

What is forgotten can be remembered.

What was once home can be home again.

After the last raindrop falls,

You make the trek back to the Timaeus,

Thoroughly soaked,

But the blissful smile never leaves your lips.

You dry off on the ship and don fresh clothing before preparing a modest supper.

You'll sleep on the ship tonight and prepare to explore the rest of the planet tomorrow.

You hope to locate bodies of water and comb for any surviving fauna.

There is much work to do and you'll need help.

SR19 composes a transmission to Sirrus requesting volunteers for the mission.

He composes similar transmissions for the homeworlds and outposts of all the tribes and for the intergalactic universities which study ancient civilizations.

You'll wait till morning to send them though.

For now,

You and the robot are the sole stewards of the forgotten planet,

And that's a special feeling.

For all the time you've searched,

Putting together the pieces of a mind map to this place,

You feel a certain hesitation to share it with others.

You want to hold it close to your heart,

To let it continue to grow,

Untouched.

Perhaps your people are too divided to come back to this place.

Perhaps it's naive to think a unified world is possible after everything that's happened.

And there's value,

Too,

In spreading out amongst the stars,

Making new homes,

Planting new seeds and seeing what grows,

Meeting new people and exploring other galaxies.

But you have faith in people.

You always have.

There's good in the universe,

More good than bad.

You all deserve a chance to come home,

To see the place where your myths and ideas were born,

Even for a little while.

You retreat to your cabin aboard the vessel and crawl into bed.

As the cabin light fades and darkness settles around you,

You imagine the pulsing glow of the light berry,

Blinking all about.

It's on this image that you close your eyes,

Letting your mind fill with stars.

Find a calm release in the body.

Take a moment to loosen up the shoulders,

Unclench the jaw,

Soften the brow and the forehead.

Take a deep breath in,

Filling the lungs and the belly with air.

Then release everything,

Letting the breath out slowly,

Relaxing the body.

On your next breath in,

Visualize the surface of the ocean at night.

Breathe out and let the tide roll out on the breath.

Breathe in and out with the waves of the ocean.

Notice how the surface of the sea glitters,

Blue and black,

And reflecting the stars in the sky above.

Breathe in and out with the glittering tides.

In your mind,

Turn the gaze upward toward the stars.

Notice the deep,

Vast darkness of the sky and the millions of shining stars that sweep across it.

Notice which ones shine brighter than others.

Breathe.

On your next breath in,

Visualize the stars gathering more light,

Growing just a bit brighter with your inhale.

And as you exhale,

Watch the stars dim faintly.

Breathe in and out,

Swelling and diminishing with the stars,

Distant and bright.

With your mind's eye,

Trace the patterns of the stars,

Connecting the dots into constellations.

Notice thin clouds scutting across the stars,

Briefly obscuring your view of the distant celestial objects.

Breathe deeply as they pass.

Know that they are made up of the same waters as the ocean,

And rivers,

And lakes that surround you.

And as your gaze is cast upward toward the sparkling cosmos,

Feel yourself grounded here on Earth.

Feel the tug of the stars and stardust,

And also the security of solid ground.

Remember that this place,

Your home,

Is part of the cosmos,

Not separate from it.

Just as you are part of nature,

Not separate from it.

All is one,

Connected and interdependent.

Breathe naturally,

Letting yourself sink into the secure embrace of the Earth.

And at the same time,

Feel the kiss of the stars.

Soften your heart and your mind.

May you find peace in the ever-changing tides of the universe.

Sweet dreams.

Reviews

I have no idea what it was about and in this case that’s a good thing.

Great story, great reading, and good night's sleep.

Your always 5 stars!⭐️

So relaxing 😌
PS. I slept like a rock 😴

Lovely as always! I like you often leave small bits of reality in your stories. It makes them very fun to listen to!

I’m 81 yers old and I listen to your bedtime stories every night. I have for about three years or so. I have been a member of Insight for a long time but you are my absolute favorite ❤️

Entertaining and clever…needs a sequel! Love your stories!!❤️

Simply put, magical.
A delightful story that put me to sleep almost instantly. Had to listen to it three times before I heard the whole thing.
Definitely adding this story to my regular sleep mix.
Thank you.

Thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻I have heard the start several times now, never got far along, so it is working! The idea is very intriguing, so I hope one morning, I will choose to take the luxury to stay in and listen to the whole story🙏🏻🌟😇🌟🦋🌟🙏🏻

You are so talented, I loved this story. Thank you! 💖

A little different. I enjoyed listening. Thank you. 🙏

That is and was marelous ❤️😎🔥👊really enjoys it alot